Transcript
Zain
0:01
This is the Strategist episode 1852. My name is Zain Velji. With me as always, Corey Hogan. And of course, there is the traveling salesman, Stephen Carter. Where do we find you, Carter?
Carter
0:12
Today I am in a hovel, I believe. It is a different
Carter
0:17
different type of room than I've been in in the past. Same hotel, very
Corey
0:26
So for the listeners out there, can
Zain
0:27
can I can I tell you something? Yeah, go ahead, Corey. And then I've got a I've got a very keen observation. But
Zain
0:32
please, you first. gray
Corey
0:32
gray unfurnished wall uh microwave prominently displayed in set yeah
Corey
0:38
firing you from this campaign the
Zain
0:40
the the the room the room quality going down yeah from where it was last time which was uh i'm gonna i'm gonna you know i'm gonna say what within meters of your local fire and paramedic service uh to where it is now which is they have boxed you in yeah you you are this is is this is on the path to being out carter we've
Carter
1:04
we've seen this before no
Carter
1:05
no i've got there they said to me just yesterday they've got 100 confidence in me oh
Carter
1:15
yeah it feels good what's
Carter
1:17
what's this has no windows
Zain
1:18
windows your room has no windows it's
Carter
1:20
it's true i'm in a room with no windows
Zain
1:23
cory have you ever gotten a hotel room with no windows no no is there was
Carter
1:28
forgot to book a hotel room was that zane or you oh no that was me that
Corey
1:33
that was not yeah no no no different i did have a really bad hotel room in ottawa where we forgot to book that is true forgot to
Zain
1:40
to book or you thought you'd get super
Corey
1:43
last minute it was a last minute thing and then i booked uh i can't remember but i ended up at this like um it
Corey
1:49
it was clearly not originally a hotel and i think if there was a window there it was probably looking
Corey
1:55
looking into like like an interior courtyard that was also without windows. That would be. Carter,
Zain
1:59
Carter, not only do I think they want you off the campaign, I think they don't want your remains to be found.
Corey
2:04
That's what this hotel indicates
Zain
2:06
indicates to me is that it's like, oh, it would be unfortunate if there were a fire and no way out.
Zain
2:12
I got quoted in
Carter
2:14
in an article again. I saw that. Yeah.
Zain
2:17
Wait, can we talk about
Corey
2:20
about this? I have not seen this. Hey, just said they should just look at the rules and be creative. I think that was your quote, right? right? That was my quote. That's
Zain
2:26
That's a good quote.
Zain
2:27
What was your, okay. Can you give us some context for, I'm giving you some free air time to pump up the fact that you've, you've, you've been quoted somewhere. We
Carter
2:34
We did a, uh, we did a, so Vancouver Sun and the Globe and Mail, uh, both interviewed me about, uh, uh, we did a negative option sign thing because
Carter
2:45
because no one answers their telephones anymore, kids. And so we did that. And, uh, I'll
Carter
2:50
I'll tell you, chaos ensued. A
Zain
2:52
A lot of signs.
Carter
2:52
signs. Sorry, can you tell me
Zain
2:54
me what this is? Can you just explain this to me? What is this negative? You remember
Carter
2:58
the old days when corporations used
Carter
3:00
used to do this to you. They'd say, if we don't hear from you, we're going to increase your rates, right? And we're going to sell you this new product. And I think of Rogers and the cable companies were notorious for this. Anyways, that was called negative option billing. And in sign land, what it basically is, is I
Carter
3:19
I send you a series of emails that say, by the end, if you don't opt out, we're going to install a sign on your line.
Zain
3:29
I love this. Because
Zain
3:30
Because I love this for you. Sorry, let me rephrase. I love this for you.
Zain
3:34
Because it's so you. Of
Zain
3:36
Of course it is. It's so you.
Zain
3:38
Yo, what? Has anyone done this before?
Zain
3:43
it's been done before.
Zain
3:44
Okay. Okay. And how did it go? I'm actually beyond the quotes and the, and the media, what was the goal of it and how did it go? Well,
Carter
3:52
Well, we had, we had about 2.5% rejection rate with people emailing back saying, don't, don't give me the sign. And then we had about a 0.1% rejection once we installed.
Zain
4:05
So wait, you installed signs on what? Hundreds of lawns and just like assuming consent 2000 oh
Zain
4:12
oh my god cory you you're closing your eyes and shaking your head uh is this the fact that i'm talking about this or the fact that you it's the you
Corey
4:19
object to the actual
Corey
4:20
strategy it makes me sad yeah
Zain
4:24
yeah but did it work didn't i summarize it correctly i love this for you carter 95
Zain
4:29
95 of the people
Carter
4:32
so we had a list of 2 000 signs we had a list of 2,000 signs. Do you know how hard it is to contact 2,000 people?
Carter
4:38
you have any idea
Carter
4:39
idea how hard it is? I
Zain
4:40
I need some context here. These are 2,000 people who in the past had taken a
Carter
4:43
a sign. They had taken a sign in the past, yeah. Okay, I'm less offended.
Corey
4:48
a little better. Yeah,
Carter
4:48
Yeah, they'd taken a sign two and a half years ago for the election. So we were contacting people who had already had a sign. It wasn't like I was just going to your house, knocking your door, and it's like, you're not home, so I'm installing a sign.
Zain
5:02
But now you've got to be impressed with that conversion rate to be able to increase the pool a bit for you.
Carter
5:07
you. Oh, yeah. I mean, fuck it. I put out another thousand this weekend. No one knows about that yet.
Zain
5:13
So you were quoted in the Globe? You were quoted in the Globe about this? Because people are kicking up a storm.
Carter
5:20
Yeah. I said that they were politically challenged. The
Carter
5:23
The people who were opposing this idea.
Carter
5:27
Politically challenged. How did I miss this?
Carter
5:29
I don't know. But
Carter
5:29
But I'm kind of a big deal out here in Vancouver now. you gotta now you're in
Zain
5:33
in a room without windows in a building that will more than likely
Carter
5:38
100 full confidence okay
Zain
5:41
good okay good i'm glad i'm glad that's the situation with you cory um now i don't see any windows present in in your home that's true but
Corey
5:49
but i suspect there are there's there you go okay good thank you thank you for the confirmation yeah that people in your home want you to live uh you're doing well otherwise i am yeah i got to hear this story that steven even had it made me feel better about the choices i've made in my life that led me here as opposed to wherever he is whatever bunker he's broadcasting from 100
Carter
6:08
100 full confidence it's
Zain
6:13
uh let's move it on gents let's move it on to our first and perhaps our only segment choices choices choices for
Zain
6:21
for mr mark carney let's talk about choices in three different ways first i want to talk about the choices that mr carney made prime minister carney we're gonna have to get used to that. Indeed, that is what it is. Prime Minister Carney made for his cabinet. I then want to talk about, gents, the choices he made to message that cabinet and that initial sort of round of press coverage that he did, because I think there's some strategist questions in there. And then let's spend the final third of the show talking about the choices in front of him for what he does next. And I really want to focus on the unique sort of angle and the unique sort of things we could bring to the table, talking about message, brand, how we should position day one, et cetera. He's launched six weeks ago. Does he need to launch again? Or two months ago? Does he need to do another launch card? Stuff like that, that I want to talk about in the third segment. But let's talk about choices round one. Corey, I'll start with you. Some surprising choices. Smaller cabinet was projected. It is smaller, but it's not tiny. a different cabinet was projected it is different ish but it's of the same players no outside players and some key omissions so to speak what did you make of the first choice that mark carney had in front of him which was his cabinet i
Corey
7:34
guess i was surprised by how conservative it was like small c conservative not radical in any way shape or form the probably the most noteworthy thing was the size which but for a little blip somewhere in the aughts is the smallest cabinet since the 80s i believe that's
Corey
7:50
maybe even the 70s and it does talk about a different type of leadership and a different type of governance presumably the cabinet ministers when there's fewer of them will have more power i think that that's a good thing i've certainly been critical of people who've gone the other way and made everybody a fucking critic or a cabinet minister so i have no real qualms with this i think it's fine but the idea that you would just go and pick from your existing caucus mostly your existing cabinet and almost exclusively people who supported you in the leadership tells me in some ways this was this was the most traditional cabinet making we've seen in a long time like didn't seem that fussed with gender equity although most of the powerful ministers are women didn't seem that fussed with um you know with uh regional balance and um i'm sure we'll get into that because alberta of course got a got a big goose on the board there. And in that
Corey
8:47
that way, I think it was quite a traditional cabinet, right? In fact, it's a cabinet that looks a lot more like cabinets in the 60s and 70s than it does in the aughts and teens.
Zain
8:59
there's many sub-choices that we can talk about, and choice is going to be my whole framing of this episode. But
Zain
9:04
But what did you make of the overall choice? And then let's get into some of the questions that I think are interesting around some of the sub-choices that he made regionality specific people gender etc what do you make of the overall i
Carter
9:15
mean aside from the obvious exclusion of cory hogan um i'm disappointed by this cabinet to be honest uh i am disappointed by the cabinet i'm disappointed that george jahal wasn't in the cabinet i'm disappointed that there wasn't a bunch of new blood brought into the cabinet i think that that had more to do with the rush of becoming a cabinet and naming a cabinet as soon as possible uh that That, to me, was the driving consideration of the cabinet was how do we get the cabinet ministers in as quickly as possible and not how do we get the best possible cabinet for the election? So I'm disappointed. I think the regional balance, forget about regional balance. Let's talk instead about making sure that we have regional competitiveness. You know, there's a very real chance that you don't have any liberal seats from Alberta in the next election. I'd be wanting to shore that up.
Carter
10:09
uh and i'm i'm just disappointed because i think that the the answer was let's put this in as quickly as possible that means that we don't have a lot of time for vetting so we're going to go with the people who are already on the vetted list yeah
Corey
10:22
that was certainly the sense i got too right like they i suspect they just even based on the reporting and some of the musings that were out there that maybe at least for a hot minute they considered doing something different with the cabinet maybe even pulling people in from outside of the cabinet certainly
Corey
10:37
we saw some some reporting on that, but then ultimately decided, you know, it's not really going to work for us and probably came down for logistical concerns as these things often do, to be frank. But that's kind of the heart of my, this is a very conservative cabinet point, right? They said that might be a little difficult. So let's do the thing that's not particularly difficult. And I don't know. I mean, that tells us something about Mark Carney. It shouldn't be surprising. He's a former central banker. But if you're a liberal thinking he's going to throw out like absolutely everything that's ever been done and do an entirely new type of politics i suspect you're going to be disappointed his new will likely be what politics looked like 40 years ago and maybe that will be refreshing to us after the last couple of decades of you know soundbite politics but it's not going to be revolutionary cory
Corey
11:27
cory why do you
Zain
11:27
you think georgetown hall is not in the cabinet first minister first not first minister first caucus member to endorse him launch happened in his, quote unquote, like jurisdiction of Alberta, gave the opening speech to him. But here he is not in cabinet. Surprised
Corey
11:41
Surprised me. Did it surprise you? It did surprise me. It seemed like it'd be a pretty easy addition to make. But
Corey
11:47
there may have been other considerations. They may have worried about the caucus dynamics that that would introduce, given that George had been one of the people who had been critical of Justin Trudeau earlier than everybody else. And so maybe there was a group of Trudeau loyalists who thought that would just be absolutely a no-go for them maybe there was a challenge with vetting either time or they found something that warranted further conversation i'm not saying there was in fact i doubt it in terms of like the vetting likes further thing but that's always a possibility with these things you got to think about uh andrew leslie for example everyone thought he'd be in cabinet we
Corey
12:21
we don't know why he wasn't but certainly the rumors for a long time have been there
Corey
12:25
there was something and you know when you do these things there's never any that's like therefore they They cannot be in cabinet, but often this causes us concern. We'd want you to kind of self-report this, whatever it may be, right? Maybe there were some hiccups there. And, you know, maybe it was just decided that it just wasn't worth the pain in terms of dealing with those considerations. That's my guess, right? I don't think that there's been a falling out between Carney and Shahal. That, to me, seems unlikely. frankly.
Corey
12:56
Might be the catalyst for one, but I don't think that there was anything that changed Mark Carney's thinking of George Chahal in the leadership contest. Carter,
Zain
13:05
Carter, it was very much a cabinet of people who helped me get here, yet George Chahal's not on the list. What's going on?
Carter
13:11
I don't know. I think that it was all about vetting. I really do. And I don't think it was about vetting, turning something up. I think it was, we're doing this four days from now. How are we going to make sure that we get the right possible cabinet? that oh okay well we'll just take the existing cabinet add a couple and call it a day well
Corey
13:29
may have been vetted in the round last time right that's the thing you've got to keep in mind exactly
Corey
13:35
faces may have been previously vetted when justin trudeau was thinking about his cabinet back last summer or
Carter
13:41
before there was probably a list of people that they could reach from they reached from that list and uh they they dramatically shrunk the cabinet in part to say um you know this is a smaller cabinet so not everybody's going to be in it but just you wait it'll it'll be okay after the election when we when we name our actual governing count cabinet this is this is just an election cabinet don't worry about it it's not actually sending any real messages to the population or anything like that yeah
Zain
14:12
yeah no in order to get that joke you can tune into our um completely uh well-aged patreon episode um that didn't that That held
Corey
14:19
held up okay. I think in the final summary, you're
Corey
14:23
you're not going to hate it. Yeah,
Corey
14:25
no. That's a guarantee.
Zain
14:26
Okay, well, that's a Coriolan guarantee. Hey, listen, let's keep talking about other choices. Carter, strategic mistake not to have anyone, was it west of something, like west of some
Zain
14:37
some Ontario place? Like no one in Manitoba, we can't even do the math ourselves. No one in Manitoba, no
Carter
14:46
any B.C.? One in B.C. One in B.C. OK,
Zain
14:50
so one from those four provinces, is that a strategic mistake or do you do in
Zain
14:56
in your heart of hearts not give a shit? No,
Carter
14:57
No, it's a big mistake. I mean, for
Carter
15:00
for me, this thing is all going to boil down to the lower mainland of British Columbia. I mean, let's say you pick up a couple of seats in Saskatchewan or a couple of seats in Alberta. That's great. That's all wonderful. Isn't that exciting? We picked up two more seats. But the lower mainland of British Columbia is ripe
Carter
15:16
ripe for, you know, going conservative. It's it's also right for going liberal. I mean, it's going to be an absolute battleground in the next election. And why you wouldn't want to buttress against the the coming force of of conservatism by putting in just a couple of cabinet ministers. Again, if it only gives you a two-point bounce for that individual cabinet minister, that two-point bounce could make a massive difference. Plus, you have things that you can actually do. I
Carter
15:49
I mean, it doesn't look like this cabinet is actually going to be announcing anything or doing very much. It's all going to come from the prime minister's office for the next week. week. But nonetheless, it still would have been very helpful, I think, to have had at least two or three more cabinet ministers west of the Ontario-Manitoba border.
Zain
16:10
Corey, strategic mistake, or you don't really give a crap that we don't have coverage for those three provinces? Real policy.
Corey
16:17
don't think it's like a fatal mistake, but I do think it is part of a worldview that is outdated, right? The west of this country, in terms of size, population-wise, economy it's shifted big time like bc and alberta there's more people in these two provinces than there are in quebec right the dynamics of this country has shifted and i'm not i mean you just have to turn on cbc the national to to get that the laurentians don't always understand that right that's that's a reality i'm going to put on my aggrieved alberta hat for a minute here but it's true you do not always get that recognition that the balance of the country has shifted west and
Corey
16:55
it is consistent with a cabinet that was built like it was in the 60s and the 70s that's about all i can say for it in a neutral sense it doesn't make sense to me you wouldn't give at least some consideration to regions especially when you consider how titchy these regions are right we don't like to be forgotten we're well aware we're regularly forgotten and so it's not doing the liberals any favors but it is a 50-day contract but there were challenges is with the, you know, putting in some of the Alberta people, potentially. And so I guess it is what it is, right? Mark Carney ultimately decided he wanted a cabinet that he could trust to do no harm, seems to be the mantra here. And for
Corey
17:37
whatever reason, he decided some of the other choices might harm him.
Zain
17:41
I want to talk
Corey
17:41
talk about the other
Zain
17:41
other two pillars of choices shortly. So Carter, I'm going to go quickly on this. The choice of giving Gilboa an upgrade, as
Zain
17:49
as you have, And also the change in heritage, which I think is interesting, like the Ministry of Heritage now to cultural identity. Can we talk about that for a second? The strategy there on both fronts, the change in the nomenclature, as well as taking environment away from Guilbeau, but making him your Quebec lieutenant for
Zain
18:12
reasons I think are pretty apparent in terms of his popularity in Quebec still being quite strong. What do you think of that? I don't want to go through everyone. Guilbeau is an interesting one to me.
Carter
18:20
Guilbeault is interesting, but keep in mind that Champagne and Jolie also endorsed Mark Carney, right? Like, there is a significant... Sure, and he gets
Zain
18:28
gets finance and she keeps foreign affairs, just for people
Carter
18:31
people to keep in school at home. There's
Carter
18:32
There's a significant Quebec
Carter
18:35
Quebec contingent. Now, in fairness, Quebec is going to, you know, if the Liberals are going to form anything vaguely resembling a government, Quebec and Ontario are going to have to go Liberal.
Carter
18:50
but so does the lower mainland of british columbia anyways and i'm kind of i'm not sure that gibbo got a uh an
Carter
18:57
an upgrade to quebec you know like i was gonna say he was fairly significant does not feel like a promotion in the environment tell me why tell
Corey
19:04
tell me why yeah
Corey
19:06
yeah i look i mean
Carter
19:07
mean the environment you actually do shit in heritage you just exactly it
Carter
19:12
it was heritage you got right like you just you make sure that the cbc heritage relabeled
Corey
19:16
relabeled to cultural identity yeah a couple
Corey
19:18
couple of other things appended to it as well but look i think yeah
Corey
19:22
here's the reality there's going to be a lieutenant for each of these provinces lieutenants don't that's not a cabinet position right that's saying like you're my guy or you're my you're my gal right for this very uh you know very particular geography
Corey
19:36
and i think it's a bit of a lame consolation prize frankly the spin um this
Corey
19:42
this the spin goes the other way zane like you know the uh the quebec journalists when i was watching the carney presser were saying like hey what's going on you you just he's back to where he was basically like gilboa yeah yeah no i
Corey
19:54
with that personally like
Corey
19:55
demoted and mark carney said uh
Corey
19:58
uh oh no uh this is so important the identity of this country is very tied up into these current conversations we're having and i agree with that it is like it's probably never been a in the past 30 years a more important portfolio right probably Charlie, Sheila Copps was the last time a heritage minister actually was considered like important, but it
Corey
20:18
it is spin. It is ultimately not as good of a portfolio as environment. And it's certainly when you consider that his thing, well,
Corey
20:26
well, yeah, he wasn't the one who introduced it, but he was such a champion of the carbon tax. And that was also pulled out. I
Corey
20:32
I don't know how you read that as a promotion. I don't think it is.
Zain
20:36
Carter, let's talk about the final choice I want to discuss in cabinet. cabinet. The
Zain
20:40
The choice for the conservatives in front of them.
Zain
20:44
They, on the day of talked about this being 90 some odd percent, the same people that Justin Trudeau had in his cabinets. The question I have is less about message, more about longevity. How long do the conservatives talk about this cabinet? Was it just to respond to the news cycle that Carney gave them on that day last week? Or do they talk about this cabinet and use their time and energy to talk about this cabinet going forward. Where are you with that from a strategic point of view?
Carter
21:10
If they talk about this cabinet going forward, they're going to lose. This is not going to be an election about the cabinet choices that Mark Carney's made. This is going to be an election about Mark Carney and
Carter
21:22
and his character and capabilities versus Pierre Polyev and his character and his capabilities. That is the actual election. And I think that you need to remind mind people that Pierre Polyev was going to be the prime minister and still should be the prime minister if you're the conservatives because the liberals um and it's not they haven't changed much in the cabinet it's that they haven't changed much in their leader so this should be about the leader not about the cabinet in my mind but Jenny Byrne and and uh and uh Pierre Polyev they only know one one mechanism and that's attack everything attack everything attack everything so I wouldn't be surprised if they still went after the cabinet but i think that's a huge mistake going
Carter
22:05
going after a group of people that you
Carter
22:07
you know most canadians won't be able to name more than two cory
Zain
22:11
cory carter might be right about canadians being able to name it but is it compelling that they talk about the 90 some odd percent of cabinet being justin trudeau's crew going forward or was that just a competent response on on the day of in your mind i'm
Corey
22:24
i'm sure it'll come up again i think it's just another proof point in their whole just like justin attack that they've been doing for i don't know the past month even here even before he was officially leader certainly
Corey
22:36
certainly running those ads in
Corey
22:37
in volume if you're listening to terrestrial radio or if you're looking at youtube and billboards
Corey
22:42
out of home everything everything
Corey
22:44
yeah i mean i was driving around calgary um
Corey
22:46
um you saw tax relief
Corey
22:48
yeah yeah there's there's just a lot out there like it's a pretty saturated market for advertising and i
Corey
22:54
don't know carbon tax carney just like justin they're going with those alliterations they've got money to spend they're gonna run them hard
Carter
23:01
hard they're spending it but
Zain
23:02
but but cory do you think there's something there's a there there on talking about cabinet going forward of course it'll come up so should
Corey
23:07
should they talk about it but as i was saying um it carter's right like you don't want to be talking about the cabinet and how
Corey
23:15
how would that even if the cabinet became the conversation oh we got to talk about his cabinet we got to talk about the people around we got to talk about his his team.
Corey
23:23
Who's your cabinet, Pierre? Can we talk about your cabinet? Can we talk about your team? What would you do? It's not going to happen because it's not going to happen, but if you were somehow going to make the cabinet and the team the conversation of the election, I just don't know that that's to your advantage if you're Pierre-Paul. His advantage is to make it singularly about one man, Justin Trudeau. So the cabinet individuals, they're not individuals. They're roughly the same as justin trudeau and that's the only thing he cares about and that's as far as they're going to go with the attack let's
Zain
23:55
let's talk about the second pillar of choices which is carney's messaging and his immediate sort of in front of him tasks and i guess the main question i have in front of you to grapple with guys is does carney want to do more from this job than just call an election this might be the only sort of two-week window in which carney gets to be be prime minister. And is there anything that, in your mind, Carter, that's strategic of Carney wanting to do more of the job than perhaps we might expect him to do before calling an election? Does that question make sense? Do you understand what I'm trying to
Zain
24:25
Like, he could get into it and be like, fuck, there's shit I want to do here. And yeah, it might be later this week or next week that he calls an election. But how much governing, the choice of governing, how much do you think Mark Carney will have an appetite for? And how would you kind of pull someone back from that especially when um they may have a particular appetite for it i
Carter
24:46
i mean less than zero um i i think that in general like the trip to europe we talked about that a few weeks ago the thing how that made sense you predicted
Zain
24:55
predicted that and you said that was a good idea yeah
Carter
24:58
because you you go to europe you you remind the world that we have uh opportunities beyond that of the united states you come back you take some sort of action against trump um that's about it because you're not actually governing you're setting up your election you're setting up you're just doing enough to prove that you belong on the world stage pierre doesn't you you're doing enough to prove that you've you can act against uh donald trump pierre can't you're you're you're doing enough to show that you have a government of people that can actually do the job and pierre doesn't that's it that's all you have to do so you have to get in and you have to get out as quickly as possible And I think the election is going to be called in
Carter
25:38
in like extremely short order. Yeah.
Carter
25:41
you know, get in, get out and don't worry about governing.
Zain
25:45
Corey, should he worry at all about governing? And of course, he will talk about the repealing of the consumer facing carbon tax in a moment here. But beyond that, should he care at all about any governance matters while he's prime minister and perhaps while the only time he's ever prime minister? I
Corey
25:59
I think that is a few Canadian equivalent of executive orders he's got to do, right? right? Maybe not even OICs, like he's playing a bit fast and loose with holding
Corey
26:08
holding up signs that say like, I dictate that this is going to, not how our government works. Right, right, that one paragraph carbon tax repeal sort of thing. Not really how our government works,
Corey
26:14
works, it's fine. But he's... Yeah, bring the... It was made for good theater. Yeah, well, that's it. He's going to bring the theater to the next couple of days here to make a big show of using government to make changes to unpopular policies, to make a big show of using the fact that he's the prime minister to go meet with leaders and reinforce people's perception of his relationships that's it he's not sitting there saying you know if i had an extra week i really think i could knuckle into those regulations about health care i
Zain
26:42
i guess okay you're right so maybe maybe a different way for me to ask my question is does he want to show action show action not do things does he want to show action uh in his two weeks of or one week 10 days i'm gonna just use 10 days as a placeholder
Zain
26:56
for governing does he want to show action and and and is that actually an important part of the setup for for the third pillar that that we're going to discuss, which is the choices he needs to make in week one of a campaign.
Corey
27:06
Of course. So we already saw a little bit of that on Friday, where he went and he made a couple of moves as the new prime minister. If you ever wanted any evidence,
Corey
27:16
evidence, light though it may be, that the cabinet was not really about the cabinet, but it was about just saying there's a new boss in town, it's that he repealed the carbon tax the exact same day. You could have easily spaced that out another day, said, we're meeting today, but we're going to meet again tomorrow. We've got some important things it's all orientation today tomorrow is when we get down to the real agenda like you have that option right but he said no i'm gonna i'm gonna repeal the carbon tax today he's now going to europe he was marching in a saint patrick's day parade he's gonna do a few things that showcase him in different ways using the power of his office and then he's fucking out like of course like nothing i've seen so far makes me think he actually is interested in governing governing governing right like it is and you both would think it's
Corey
28:00
it's a mistake that he would
Zain
28:01
get deeper than where he
Corey
28:02
he is right now you're never gonna get anything done in the time he's got available yeah what
Carter
28:06
what are you gonna do rethink health care let's let's
Zain
28:09
let's move let's move on then okay um the choice of his presser what
Zain
28:13
did you think of it the human wall behind very conventional right step outside the human wall of his cabinet ministers christopher freeland over right shoulder. So talk to me about the visuals of it, and then talk to me about what you thought of those 20, 25 minutes where he gave a bit of a speech and then answered questions from the press. I'll ask both of you about the choices that were made there, both strategic and messaging wise.
Carter
28:37
Yeah, I mean, I think that he looks and sounds like a prime minister. This is where I'm going to kind of agree with Corey's earlier assessment about the cabinet. It's traditional, right like i don't think that they made it there were no decisions there that were outside of the norm this was exactly the norm and and i think that that might be one of the the
Carter
28:58
the theories of the election is we just need normalcy again right and um i would argue i
Carter
29:06
i would argue that he needs to step out a little bit more um what
Zain
29:10
what do you mean by that what does that mean i'd
Carter
29:12
i'd like to see him on his own i'd like to i mean this this trip to europe is going to be super interesting how does he look without a human wall how does he look you know when he's you know can he can he take questions on a topic that he's not 100 an expert on uh already can he can he survive without his cabinet ministers uh you know it's going to be an interesting
Carter
29:35
uh interesting trip to europe cory
Zain
29:38
cory what did you think of the setup what did you think of the the content i
Corey
29:42
think carter named it so squarely and so well it was normalcy right like it was central casting for prime minister what is it supposed to look like in our mind maybe even in a way it doesn't even usually look like but it's what you expect right yeah
Corey
29:56
yeah and he did that job really well a couple other comments i'll add one is i've never seen a guy the first day on the job look more comfortable and i don't i don't mean a politician i mean anyone like he looked like Like, he'd been doing it for months, didn't have a care in the world, was batting around. Like, there was no bleeding of nervousness there. He looked like a guy who'd had the job forever, right? And I think that that's an incredible superpower he's got. He's clearly got a lot of confidence. Doesn't seem to be irrational confidence.
Corey
30:26
Yeah, no, for sure.
Corey
30:27
And he's just fine with it, right? He's instantly fine with it. I also think he's better off the cuff than off the script. like his remarks were delivered very plotting marching through certainly something we identified during the leadership contest as well but the minute it's okay let's go to questions he's boom bam ping he's throwing little quips out he's joking with journalists you know he's just moving through it kind of kind of a prick to journalists but yes you know so on that note i gotta tell you he
Corey
30:54
he was he was just the right level of prick for day one he can't away with that day one if that was day 1000 people be like fucking what an asshole right but on day one okay you so you You saw it, too. Oh, yes. Oh, yeah. But on day one, you can get away with that.
Zain
31:08
It was, it was, I like this guy, but I've seen this guy before, and he may not be the easiest to work with sort of guy. Like, we've met a person like this before. I'm not saying you, the three of us, but like, we've seen versions
Corey
31:20
versions of this person before. I'm well aware I can be that guy on moments. Yeah, yeah,
Corey
31:25
yeah. Yeah, I think it's, it was interesting, but I, like Carter, also would have liked to see, maybe this is their theory of the campaign. We're going to be central casting for the prime minister, but I would like to see some creativity myself. We'll see. Could come.
Corey
31:39
Or he might just say... I want
Zain
31:40
want to talk about potential creativity in a second. Carter, there is the item of the choices that he made, which is the day one carbon tax repeal. Yeah.
Zain
31:52
what would you did you like and everything from including aspects of which we've already touched on the cameras in the cabinet room the signing of the executive order the only thing that was missing was the fucking sharpie uh so that it wasn't trump like right it was uh but the the the the theatrics and the actual timing would
Zain
32:12
you have done something differently how would you have made it better i guess is let me start with that angle uh in getting your your strategist assessment with it?
Carter
32:19
Well, I don't think that I would have, um,
Carter
32:22
uh, I would have done it the same day as the cabinet, uh,
Carter
32:28
because when, when Alison Redford was running for the leadership and we went into that two week period, um, every
Carter
32:34
every other leadership contender endorsed Gary Moore all in the exact same day.
Carter
32:39
And you didn't get to build the story and
Carter
32:42
and the building of the story is what actually allows a story to become something more exciting.
Carter
32:48
Name your cabinet on Friday. Make an announcement on Saturday. Make another announcement on Sunday.
Carter
32:55
Go to Europe on Monday, right?
Carter
32:56
right? So your announcement on Saturday could have been the
Carter
33:00
the repeal of the carbon. We're working 24-7 here.
Carter
33:03
We're going to repeal the carbon
Corey
33:04
carbon tax on Saturday.
Carter
33:06
It's as big a news day because now you get the cabinet story and the carbon tax story and the europe story and you're building instead of trying to fight your own story and if you think that the media has the capacity of doing more than one story it's super duper hard for the media to do more than one story especially when they're doing reactions to you know they got to go to pierre pauliev and get his reaction they got to go to some guy who runs the ndp does anybody remember his name i don't remember uh i don't
Corey
33:35
don't think there is an ndp
Corey
33:36
anymore steven you're i think
Carter
33:38
think it's gone you're confused
Carter
33:40
yeah i was confused that's on me i'm i apologize um but
Carter
33:48
would have given them the more more opportunity to build momentum right cabinet i
Carter
33:54
i i think if you went cabinet carbon tax trip to europe come
Carter
33:58
come back from europe action on on uh uh on the united states that would be my recipe board
Zain
34:07
cory let's talk about this what did you like what did you not like about the carbon tax repeal announcement uh the timing of it the theatrics of it and i'm curious if you feel like it hit their day one goal which is seriousness like we're gonna do shit or show action i'm curious what you kind of took away from that day as well Yeah.
Corey
34:27
Yeah. So what I liked, I liked the theatrics. I know you've got some people online, including conservative MPs saying this is ridiculous. This is not how the system works. I thought it was fine. Look, it is kind of how the system works. The prime minister directs a minister to do something and the minister does it. We just don't have like, I was really curious, does that template exist? Did they just use a standard cabinet template and use it in a different way? Or did somebody have the job of saying, okay, we're basically creating an order from the prime minister. or can you go put that on paper that looks like it came from uh you know the cabinet office because
Zain
34:58
because we're going to post it on social media
Corey
34:59
media afterwards i'm so curious about the specifics behind the scenes there uh that got that going on but that was all working for me that was good that was something that uh you and it was definitive and clear and short and you know you're winning when your opponent is sitting there and saying that's not how we eliminate that like anybody gives a fuck right like anybody gives a fuck and the funny thing is as
Corey
35:22
as i already said it is kind of how we do we just don't do it in that template right so we don't just do it in the way that trump has
Zain
35:28
has kind of done it on a weekly basis it's time for my open office hours of executive order yeah so i
Corey
35:33
i don't i don't appreciate i don't think it was like fully dishonest i do wonder about it being the same day
Corey
35:41
it's not unusual for that to happen i think jason kenney did the exact same thing got sworn in repealed the carbon tax that afternoon at the cabinet meeting right um yeah but
Corey
35:51
do think that the challenge with it is um uh
Corey
35:55
uh i do think the challenge with it is you are stepping on your own story and you are assuming that everybody wants to have the zone as flooded as badly as you do and my own personal feeling about saturday saturday
Corey
36:06
saturday is it was a lost day for the liberals it was the day after and there
Corey
36:10
didn't seem to be a great plan for it and absent a great plan i don't know why that wasn't the plan like if you had something else to keep everybody spinning on saturday and on sunday before the monday trip go
Corey
36:21
go for it but if you didn't why didn't you spread that out a little bit more yeah
Zain
36:26
yeah cory i want to talk about this third pillar of choices and let's spend a bit of time on this let me start with a big question that you've alluded to but not explicitly as like a discussion point and i want to make it one um
Zain
36:39
the data we have is limited it's
Zain
36:41
it's friday to now but
Zain
36:44
is carney presenting himself as too conservative uh
Zain
36:49
uh to to be able to win this next election in your mind no no
Corey
36:54
no okay so listen let's
Zain
36:56
basing this on one very simple piece of data where
Corey
36:59
where where has the concern or where has the liberal gains come from where have they come from you
Corey
37:07
mean historically i mean in the past two months
Corey
37:12
the ndp are sitting at 11 or 12 percent right they've dropped where where they've been
Corey
37:18
at the 20th they've dropped
Corey
37:20
and those points have all gone to the liberals as they've gotten more right wing as they've gotten more fiscally conservative like i i don't see any evidence that the headspace of this country the headspace of progressives is No, I am going to punish you if you go too far right wing. The group that would do that, the group that could do that, at least in theory, they are actually so on the mat. They are just so wrecked right now. Nobody has any interest of talking about the NDP. I think we've already established, not even sure they exist anymore. So no, I don't think he's going to lose the election for being too right wing, especially when your opponent is Pierre Poliev.
Zain
38:00
Carter, same question to you to start us off with on the choices that Mark Carney faces on what I'd call week one of the election.
Carter
38:08
Well, I just pick up where Corey left off there. I mean, I think that Carney is trying to define himself differently and the pickup from the NDP has been fantastic. I think he's also, Corey's skipping over a little bit about the pickup that he's getting from the conservatives as well. well i mean this was a 25 point gap and now it is a tie game uh
Carter
38:30
uh unless you're following the ecos polls in which case i think that uh didn't i think the liberals went over 100 with eco yeah i actually think uh you know conservatives
Corey
38:41
conservatives owe them votes in the ecos poll right i
Carter
38:44
i think they do i think the conservatives have given up all of their votes but there's also a tremendous number of votes coming off of the conservatives uh so that and what was the question zane the
Zain
38:55
question is fundamentally is carney carney positioning himself as too conservative with the limited data we have in order to be successful this next election no
Carter
39:03
no i don't i don't think so i mean i think that there is a uh zeitgeist in the province and then in the in the world towards conservatism. And only Justin Trudeau was really standing against that in Canada. I mean, if you look, you know, everybody's favorite premier right now is Doug Ford. You
Carter
39:25
Danielle Smith is getting stronger with her lunacy, not weaker. You know, we can blame the left. But, you know, David Eby squeaked out a victory against a lunatic in
Carter
39:36
in British Columbia. I mean, this is a
Carter
39:39
a time of conservatism, and rational conservatism is going to be very, very popular.
Corey
39:45
Well, look, I do want to say, I don't actually think that Mark Carney is a conservative. I think he is such a classical liberal, a type that I didn't know existed in the Liberal Party of Canada until pretty recently. I thought that they'd all kind of been shaken out by Justin Trudeau, but
Corey
40:01
he's not, you know, he's not Pierre Polyev. And to Stephen's point, about half of the gain that liberals have seen have come from the ndp and half from the conservatives so he's drawing pretty evenly from both sides which makes me think his appeal is not about left or right it's probably about competence adultness qualification and that's um that's not so bad for him that's not bad at all let's
Zain
40:25
let's talk about before we get into messaging and positioning and all the fun things we like to on the air war side of things let's talk about a ground game aspect of this carter heading into and starting into the first week, candidate
Zain
40:40
Corey, there's a Hill Times piece
Zain
40:42
saying that Carney is reaching out to prominent or is team by extension, to be fair, reaching out to prominent former Tories or prominent former New Democrats and others to consider being candidates. Do you like this for team Carney? And then I want to spend a few minutes on what their ground game candidate recruitment challenge will be. Of course, they've had some of the Trudeau era folks say, I'm actually going to run again after saying no. The most prominent, of course, is Anita Anand, who found herself on cabinet again in a prominent role. But Corey, the branching out to folks that may have been previously of another party or may have not even indicated that they're liberal now and still might be part of that other party, New Democrat, NDP, New Democrat conservatives. conservatives you like that for team carney strategically or you know find a lane find your liberals let's go i
Corey
41:35
i mean i personally like it an awful lot i like the idea that especially in a moment of crisis especially in a moment where we all need to pull together as a country there's somebody trying to pull the country together irrespective
Corey
41:45
irrespective of what their stripe has been in the past i
Corey
41:48
i do think we live in a pretty negative
Corey
41:50
negative partisanship world and the challenge becomes are you just bringing a bunch of people that are going to give people a reason to be mad at you so it remains to be seen but i i mean i don't hate it i i have to i have to assume they have some polling they have some thinking they have some focus grouping on maybe
Corey
42:07
maybe this being not such a bad contrast for them we've talked about steady stable prime ministerial versus eating an apple and a t-shirt pierre poliev right maybe that's a contrast they think works for them maybe they think hyper partisan pierre poliev versus non-partisan former public servant mark karni works for them maybe maybe this is all working for them maybe there's a piece of paper somewhere and in fact their actions today suspect there is that says mark karni is qualified stable sensible government uh who is not going to get dug into the partisan fights of the past and instead going to just put canada first and a strong canada as we build a better country or whatever the hell the you know the statement version
Corey
42:47
yeah so i don't hate it um but i also think when there's reporting like that you
Corey
42:51
you better hope that you actually have have some of these names or else it looks like you've just kind of fumbled out i want
Zain
42:55
want to get into the part b of that question that you're leaning into carter answer answer part a do you like it and then and then let's start with part b which is how does team carney ensure this is successful in a world in which most people don't even know the name of prominent cabinet ministers how do they become successful in showcasing to the public that they're creating this multi-partisan you know rainbow of people on the on the liberal side of things uh like explain that to me because But how does it how does it punch through? That's like a very 2025 sort of word. But how does that kind of punch through to make an impact or the desired impact that Team Carney would want? Should this be a dedicated strategy that they are pursuing?
Carter
43:35
You know, it's interesting. I'm trying to figure out if I long for the day of the star candidate.
Carter
43:39
You know, the star candidate used to be something that we that we you know, I think we all remember Christine Silverberg was approached by every party when she was the chief of police to be a candidate for. them in their in their in their election and uh rick hansen police chief
Carter
43:57
calgary police chief rick hansen was another calgary police chief who wound up being a candidate for uh jason kennedy um not
Carter
44:04
not jason kennedy was it jason kennedy yeah no it was jim prentice when jim prentice lost the government um you
Carter
44:11
you know these star candidates came forward you mentioned the name andrew leslie you know we have these star candidates that are going to come forward they're going to fill our cabinet and actually be successful. I'm not sure that that matters anymore. I think that we've moved so much into leader-centric politics and the cabinet is so anonymous with so little power that, you know, if you recruit a star candidate, you're probably just recruiting someone who's going to be
Carter
44:38
be bitter in being in a cabinet position where they don't get to actually make any choices. places so
Carter
44:43
you know going out and recruiting an ndp mla or recruiting a uh former liberal uh quebec liberal premier uh who also ran for the conservative leadership it sounds good in paper but you're also losing a lot of these people you
Carter
45:00
you better be able to step up on monday tuesday and actually you know deliver some of these folks or you're going to look like you're chasing a dream that doesn't exist um
Carter
45:09
um and that's that's where i'm worried about it saying you think
Zain
45:13
think there's enhanced risk there without without the upside so to speak well i mean it's not like it's not like he's going to get tom mulcair to run for him for example right like that's a name that people would know that's the name associated with with with one party uh despite his quebec liberal past right he was the former like that's just i'm throwing that out there as a hypothetical just to give you a sense of uh political height right like in terms of that sort of name isn't gonna going to show up so how does this strategy work i guess is my question i
Carter
45:41
i mean if he wanted to really difficult to work with uh ndp former leader i mean he could go to ninchy um
Carter
45:46
um but this is this is impossible like like you're just you're grabbing all these names and they're just impossible i don't
Zain
45:53
don't get it well
Corey
45:57
what's that there's another problem
Carter
45:59
you'll be fine and
Corey
45:59
and we talked a little bit about this on our on our patreon one they uh which you know if you're willing to part for six dollars you can go listen only six bucks patreon.com only six six canadian dollars right you used to you
Zain
46:11
you used to used to be american we switched over it's
Zain
46:14
okay okay we switched over though but people know people like the fact that we made a canadian choice rather than it was default canadian corey okay so let people think it was american and then we made
Corey
46:24
made the effort yeah yeah we made a choice to
Corey
46:27
like no we don't actually want
Zain
46:28
want we don't want the 30 premium we're going to make it six dollars
Zain
46:31
dollars we wanted to be
Corey
46:32
be canadian because we love this yeah
Zain
46:34
six yeah okay uh
Corey
46:35
uh we talked about is mark kearney making some of the same calculations that the kamala harris campaign made and will those calculations result in the same disadvantageous
Corey
46:46
disadvantageous outcome i guess that's the most neutral way i can put it yeah
Corey
46:50
and this just reeks of the the democrats trotting liz cheney to fucking everything right yeah
Corey
46:56
that didn't work because we live in a world of negative partisanship where it's you know it's not an the minute she's talking in support of kamala harris she's a traitor to the conservatives that you're after and the democrats that she's now in in a party with or at least she's not in a party with them but she's supporting they fucking hate her and they're like why would you do that i'm mad i'm not gonna go doorknock today because i'm mad liz cheney was on my tv saying nice things about kamala harris and so we're
Corey
47:23
we're not the united states we're canada we we do do take a different approach to our politics. I'm not saying that you're destined to have the same outcomes, but
Corey
47:30
but it does make me wonder, and it does make me wonder if it's actually a strategy that has borne
Corey
47:35
borne out recently anywhere in the world.
Zain
47:39
That's interesting. You know, not to belabor the point, because I think we're past on this particular Carney strategy, but I do find there's two aspects of it to what I presented here, right? There's the multi-partisan aspect Going after people from different political stripes, which I think we've talked about. But the former, I think, is also as interesting, right?
Zain
48:02
right? And when you're going with a cabinet that can be argued as being traditionalist or a throwback, do you think there's political value in finding people, regardless of actually their jersey color now, that have committed to public service, bringing them back, plucking them back in in this very acute moment of crisis? Does that translate for you, either as an air war message or as something interesting or useful? Like, left and right is one thing, front and back is one thing, and this is going back to go forward. Maybe I'm thinking too much about this, but there is something to be said here. here. Corey, you go first, and then Carter, who you seem to be confused, maybe because the oxygen level in your basement suite is rapidly running out. But yes,
Carter
48:46
yes, go ahead. I'm feeling a little lightheaded.
Corey
48:49
Yeah. Well, don't worry, Carter. I'll go back, and then you can go forward. Yeah.
Corey
48:53
Yeah. So you know what I mean, right? Yeah. I was
Carter
48:55
was very confused by that.
Corey
48:58
obvious major difference with when Kamala Harris is doing it and when we're doing it right now is that people in canada actually believe there's an existential crisis americans that was quite a partisan divide right people thought that you know uh if there was an existential crisis they couldn't agree on what it was they thought it was either donald
Corey
49:16
donald trump or kamala harris and so it was hard to it was hard to create a rally to the flag moment at least in a way that was actually going to give you the political dividends that you wanted but here in canada we're actually pretty pretty fucking concerned about what's going on with the united states and all of that and so maybe
Corey
49:33
maybe there is an opportunity to bring people together from across the board and say no in times of crisis we pull together we have had coalition
Corey
49:39
coalition governments during wars right where we've brought people together and maybe this is something that starts to feel like a moment where that's appropriate i have seen some polling that suggests amongst liberals it would actually be very popular to have a united
Corey
49:52
united coalition of well we're just going to get everybody involved the best minds of all we're going to put aside all of this partisan bickering and so maybe
Corey
50:01
maybe that reporting doesn't hurt so much as long as you can somewhat follow through with it i'll go back to that point there but that's that's the challenge he's got he hasn't delivered on it yet we we got in that hill times piece no names except for lee richardson who was a former conservative mp in calgary yeah
Zain
50:19
yeah who said no who
Corey
50:20
who said no so like we're and that he's supporting the conservatives so like We've got to get more than that if we're going to think this strategy is going to bear any fruit.
Zain
50:29
Carter, how does Carney launch again? He just launched.
Zain
50:34
How does he launch again? If you were advising him, what would you do? What would you do different from the launch that you had? If you were to launch, would you include some candidates? Would you have the time to build slogan? Would you completely take anything that happened during the leadership and scratch that and you're starting net new? Give me how you're thinking about this. Do you even need to launch again? again he's already prime minister let's go how are you thinking about this cory same question to you as we discuss what i'd like to call like you know the first first week or the first starting uh uh days for the carney campaign campaign
Carter
51:05
campaign started in february just keep going just keep going don't relaunch again just keep running uh make it look like one long campaign and don't give people the the time to chance to to think about whether or not um why
Carter
51:21
why they like you just understand that they they do like you and that's what mark carney should be doubling
Carter
51:27
doubling down on right now people
Carter
51:29
people like don't go crazy do
Corey
51:32
with that premise cory and
Zain
51:32
and if so this is very much a hill and knowlton thing for you and i which is carter is giving the strategic directive and we have to now make this real because he's given uh very little uh direction to us otherwise because if you agree Agree with that premise. What does a brand look like? What does all these sort of things look like? Do you borrow it from the previous one? How are you thinking about these things? I want to get a bit deeper than what Carter's put on the table here.
Corey
51:54
Yeah, I don't agree. I think that you still need to have a launch because... That fucks
Zain
51:58
fucks my premise up. Fuck,
Corey
52:00
go ahead. Go ahead, talk about it. Because I think that, well, Canadians are pretty keyed in on politics right now. I don't think they were sleepwalking through the liberal race. I do think that there is a whole group of people who are not going to pay attention until there's an election. The number of conversations I've had with people in my life, smart people, not idiots, who have said, so when do you think the election is going to be?
Corey
52:20
And I want to say we've all fucking known forever it's going to be next week at the latest, right? But they don't know that. They don't know that. And so you've got to accept the moment for what it is. You've got to accept the electorate for who they are. And they're going to turn their eyes to all of the main candidates as soon as the election starts and say, oh, I guess I better pick somebody. So you've got to use that moment. I don't think the launch needs to look like it's the first time anybody's thought about an election. I think you can use the power of the pulpit to go out and say, I've just told the governor general we need an election. We all know it's coming. We all know this moment's too serious to wait a couple of weeks to see if parliament can work or not. I want to make a new parliament work. I need a mandate to go fight mano a mano with Donald Trump, whatever it is. right and so the launch can look less
Corey
53:07
less about let me introduce you to me mark carney and more i your prime minister have made a decision this is in the best interest of the country and that's when you pull in your brand attributes in your story are
Zain
53:19
are those brand attributes new or are they borrowed from the leadership cory i
Corey
53:23
i think that you would have been a very very poor political organizer if you weren't keeping one eye on the general election through the leadership leadership so the answer is both it's new and it's carried through from it it's just making the focus a little bit different for the audience but none of the words are new the emphasis is just in different places no
Carter
53:43
no but there has to be some different words like for example it can't be team carney on the signs right it's been team trudeau on all the signs yeah it should be i
Carter
53:53
i i think it It should be a Mark
Carter
53:55
Mark Carney liberal, right?
Carter
53:58
I'm a Mark Carney liberal, right?
Carter
54:00
right? Really define that Mark Carney is a different type of liberal. You know, George
Carter
54:06
George Chahal, a Mark Carney liberal.
Carter
54:13
was a bad example. I made a bad thing happen there.
Zain
54:18
Carter, are you okay? Are they cursing
Zain
54:19
cursing at you? Carter,
Zain
54:20
have you passed? Is this like a ghost where you have passed away?
Corey
54:28
yes. We can hear
Zain
54:29
hear the sirens. Yeah,
Corey
54:30
we can hear the
Zain
54:30
the sirens. All night, every night.
Zain
54:32
This is what happens. What the? Where are they putting you up and then ultimately killing you?
Corey
54:42
all bad. All right, that's good.
Zain
54:43
Okay, Corey, any other choices you want Mark Harding to make on week one? Because my over-under is really one, only one question, and I want to get to it. Any choices that you have been thinking about that you're like, Carney, do this week one? You
Corey
54:55
You know, he's moved to Canada Strong away from the It's Time to Build that he launched with. I think that's a bit of a shame. I actually preferred It's Time to Build. I can, again,
Carter
55:03
again, I don't like Canada Strong. I can understand
Corey
55:05
understand the thinking. I just don't like it. And if it were me in the first week, you've
Corey
55:12
you've got to do it in a way that it doesn't look like insanely presumptuous. But you've got to come out as the man with the plan. Right. You haven't said very much about policy.
Corey
55:20
I actually don't know that Canadians care that much about policy right now. I
Corey
55:23
know that there's going to be some concern about giving a target-rich environment. But
Corey
55:27
But if there were ever a moment in this sea of soundbites for a 93-style Red Book, I think this is kind of it. And I wouldn't spend any time talking about it so much as to say, I
Corey
55:37
I got a plan. I want a mandate for the plan. You know, here are my three focuses are we're going to build east to west infrastructure. We're going to pull down all of these barriers, you know, all of that crap that we always say, which is always harder than it is. uh you know the way we talk about it but yeah
Corey
55:53
yeah i think you just you keep the agenda moving to your song and you also know that
Corey
56:00
that you're gonna have donald trump blow up your campaign 10 different ways so you start by getting all of that stuff out so that nobody can say you're a lightweight and then you spend the rest of the campaign as the man with the plan who's gonna fight donald trump and then you you
Corey
56:14
you react and you pick up the donald trump pieces and you hit Pierre Polyev with them and you just let you let Pierre Polyev's 35 days in his wish journal campaign that he always wanted to run get utterly fucked up and you just do everything you need to do week one and you spend the rest of the weeks you
Corey
56:33
think that's what you do
Zain
56:35
Carter well what's an idea or a thought you have in your head that you that you hope and wish and dream uh as a young lad that Mark Carney would do on the first week of of his campaign
Zain
56:53
sounds good that's a great idea probably one of your best Carter
Carter
56:57
I think you should send out an email
Carter
56:59
asking if people want to sign
Carter
57:01
and if they do
Zain
57:06
I've got nothing we're going to leave it there that's good I don't even go to the over under it should probably take a whole episode we're going to leave it there that's a wrap on episode 1852 of the strategist my name is Zane Velji With me, as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter, and we shall see you all next time.